Dear MCDS Families,
Placing my foot carefully on the mat, my hands on my hips, and pivoting slowly around my partner, I was taken to a different headspace. This is how I started my morning yesterday --doing Energy Time with kindergartners until I had to dash to my next meeting. Even though nearly every minute has been devoted to the latest on COVID-19 recently, I held onto the peace and compassion I experienced during those few moments of Energy Time with our youngest students.
Since I last communicated to you, I've watched students work in pairs on math lessons, practice spelling, engage in read-alouds, and I've had lunch conversations with Upper Schoolers. I don't mean to make light of what is a significant crisis globally and locally because of the novel Coronavirus; however, my focus is to continue to provide children a safe, healthy routine and environment in which to learn and thrive. Our intention, therefore, is to keep school open unless we are forced to close because of a confirmed case of COVID-19 among our students or staff.
With that in mind, I want to clarify that a decision to close school will be made in consultation with public health departments in San Francisco and Marin, and the Marin County Office of Education. If there is a student or staff member who has a confirmed case of COVID-19, we will close for up to 14 days or longer based on advice from our local public health department. While many schools and colleges have decided to close preventatively, we do not plan to do so unless public health or government officials tell us we have to.
We appreciate that you have been contacting Nurse Karen (kbond@mcds.org) with questions about potential exposure to COVID-19, and urge you to continue to do so. When you report to Nurse Karen, she and I follow up with health officials about each possible case of exposure or infection, and we have been asking families to keep students home, and staff to stay home, until we have clearance from our public health department that they can return to school. Please be aware that information has been spreading widely, and much of it is inaccurate. More specifically, there are no known cases of COVID-19 among MCDS staff or families. We will not put our community at risk if we know of a novel Coronavirus infection in our school.
As I've said before, the situation is extremely fluid, so from now on, I will send an update every evening. All of these communications, along with other helpful resources, will be archived on this page of our school website.
Calendar Updates
Here are the latest updates on non-essential activities and programs that we are changing or canceling in order to support social distancing. If an upcoming event does not appear below, we are still assessing whether we can proceed with it as planned, and will let you know as soon as we have more information.
Athletic Games/Matches: CANCELED until further notice. After school practices for MCDS teams continue as normal.
If you have questions about cancellations or postponements to these school activities, please contact your student's Division Head: LS - Stephanie Deitz (sdeitz@mcds.org) or US - Barbara Kraemer-Cook (bkraemer-cook@mcds.org).
Distance Learning
I've been fielding questions from parents in the theme of, "What will distance learning look like?" Today you received Home Resource Kits for K-4 students and an email from Stephanie explaining how they will be used should we have a school closure. Tomorrow you will receive more detailed information from our Division Heads about what distance learning will look like for each grade. Our teachers have been creative and inspired in the ways they've developed potential units, lessons, and activities so that students can continue learning at home in case of an extended school closure. More on that tomorrow from Stephanie and Barbara!
From Chef Jason Hull
Finally, I want to share some changes in our lunch program implemented by our dedicated food services team, led by Chef Jason.
In light of the coronavirus, and to protect against the spread of germs in the lunchroom, we have taken steps to eliminate "touchpoints" during lunch. The lunch menu has been scaled back so that all fresh food items are served by our kitchen staff from the service windows. We have pre-poured milk and water in our stainless steel cups, and will have sunbutter cups, jelly cups, and other single-serving condiments in the lunchroom for students to help themselves to. We will continue to provide healthy, kid-friendly meals, along with allergy-free alternatives that we hope your children will enjoy. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Chef Jason Hull (jhull@mcds.org).
Thank you so much for all you're doing to manage through this strange time. We love your students and will continue to do everything we can to keep them safe and healthy at MCDS.
Sincerely,
marin country day school 5221 Paradise Drive • Corte Madera CA • 94925 To unsubscribe from future emails, click here. |